


Sunlight on Steel

by ebres



Series: Symbiosis [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Bond, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 08:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13994844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebres/pseuds/ebres
Summary: Kylo staggered to his feet and saw them running through the snow. The traitor and… Her. She was shivering, only wearing those light desert robes, and a matching tremor ran through him.“What did you do to me?”





	Sunlight on Steel

Cold. Between one second and the next he was all at once too cold to breathe.

                His boots skidded to a halt, leaving long tracks in the fresh fallen snow. He took one shuddering breath and then another, ice piercing his lungs, the air scraping through his nose and down his throat to expand a burning cold deep in his chest. His hands shook and he clenched them into fists at his sides, numb pain radiating up his wrists.

                Starkiller Base was cold. Always. A frozen chunk of forsaken rock in the middle of the galaxy chosen because it was nothing more than ice and rock and dense _nothing_ that could be hollowed out and formed to their purpose. It was a sub-zero nowhere planet locked in an eternal winter. Cold that seeped into the machinery and kept it stable, cold that stole away with excess heat, cold that served a purpose.

                Not like this.

                Not _this_ cold. Not when it had been daylight moments ago and the planet itself was absorbing the energy of the sun, he could _feel_ it thrumming through the trees, the air itself, pulsing and alive. His tunic was insulated and weatherproof, meant to keep a constant temperature in any environment. Even without his helmet it shouldn’t be-

                A shudder so violent it nearly bent him double, a cold so complete it even numbed the heat of the wound on his side. He staggered into a tree, bit back a scream as his shoulder hit the bark, the aching cold magnifying every impact and movement.

                He braced a hand against the tree and took as deep a breath as he dared.

                Focus. Control. I am the master of myself.

                There was something wrong here, something wrong, _twisted_ , with his connection to the Force. Killing Han Solo hadn’t been the relief that his Master had promised, it felt worse, hollow, splintering, fragmenting away into nothing. This cold had to be from that, some reaction through the Force, all he had to do was pull the pieces back together, tie the threads, lock out the Light once at for all.

                He stared out at the snow without seeing it, deep breath out, clouded in front of his eyes, and he reached out into the Force.

                _He coughs as a gust of wind throws sand into his face. He shields himself with one hand and squints through stinging eyes out at a wasteland, endless stretches of dunes and wreckage, and the relentless red sun that beats down on all of it. He hisses and whips his hand away as his fingers start to burn on sun baked metal, the shell of a long abandoned weapon left laying in the sun._

_He plants his staff deep into the sand with every step to stop his boots from sliding down the dunes as he circles the wreck to find a shady spot to sit. Dinner is clutched in his other hand, his first full meal in weeks, his stomach wrenches in protest that he isn’t eating_ right now _._

_The protein rations are straight out of the pan not minutes ago, they sting his fingers and burn down his throat as he wolfs them down, but he doesn’t care. All that matters is eating as much as possible before something comes and takes it away. He licks his fingers clean and then the plate, not even a drop wasted, before he tears into the rehydrated bread. Everything is hot, the food in his stomach, the sand under his legs, the sun-_

His fist connected with the tree with every ounce of force he could throw behind it. Bark, fabric, and skin splintered on impact, staining the tree red, the shock of it arching up his arm and into his chest. The cold of the forest crashed back around him and he found himself missing the warmth of a sun he _knew_ he’d never felt. The cold and…

                A crushing, aching, loneliness that wasn’t just his own.

                He lashed out at the tree again but before he could make contact he was-

                _Standing on the co-pilot’s chair of his father’s ship, alarms blaring around his head, drowning out all other sounds. He knows exactly what he’s looking for, he’d done this repair in exchange for a week’s worth of food, would never forget_ that _, and his fingers find the mess of wiring. Everything on this ship is cobbled together, a smuggler’s work here, a trader’s another, and here is his work. There’s no time to_ un _wire it so he grabs the chip and yanks it from the panel._

_The alarms stop._

_“What did you do?” He spins around on the seat, still perfectly balanced, to face his father in the pilot’s chair. He holds up the chip, frayed wires dangling over his wrist, and a giddy smile curls his lips._

_“I by-passed the compressor,” he laughs, Father looks_ stunned _and it’s wonderful, more wonderful than he could possibly imagine, and he drops down to sit in the chair properly. It’s warm and comfortable and made for someone much larger than him. Father takes the chip from his fingers and studies it, then-_

_Father looks up at him and laughs, just one huff of breath and a half-twitch of a smile, and warmth_ blooms _up his chest. He’s proud of me, he thinks and-_

No! No, no, NO! He _never_ looked at me that way. He was afraid of me. He’d have been afraid of you too if he’d known what you were.

                He pounded his fist against his side, at the long wound above his hip, letting red fleck out onto the snow. The pain was hot, steaming against the air, dark in the overpowering white all around him, and he let it consume him. His glove came away slick with blood, nearly black in the growing darkness, but the ice rushed in as quickly as it had gone.

                His hand was shaking and bile rose up into his throat. Weak. Always so _weak_.

                _There are hands on his back, warm and wide, and he clutches to the metal railing in front of him, the metal cold under his bare palms. The world all around him is freezing and he’s staring down at a catwalk where his father stands with- The light behind him snuffs out, leaving the whole scene bathed in dim, bloody light._

_He screams as a monster murders his father._

_“No, no,_ no!”

                A wet cold seeped through the seat of his tunic, his back ached through the chill where he’d slid down the tree into the snow. The Force snapped through him, catching in his chest, and ripped a sharp, pained sound from him. The world tilted on its axis, he felt the ground shake beneath him, the next Resistance bombing run or-

                Kylo staggered to his feet and saw them running through the snow. The traitor and… Her. She was shivering, only wearing those light desert robes, and a matching tremor ran through him.

                “What did you do to me?”


End file.
